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Re: And they say C is obscure

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On 06/06/17 12:47, Malcolm McLean wrote:
> On Tuesday, June 6, 2017 at 11:15:49 AM UTC+1, David Brown wrote:
>> On 06/06/17 11:39, Malcolm McLean wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, June 6, 2017 at 10:11:02 AM UTC+1, David Brown wrote:
>>>> On 06/06/17 10:15, Malcolm McLean wrote:
>>>>
>>>> It does not matter if you are thinking mathematically, or
>>>> psychologically - if X is a kind of Y, then X has the features of Y.
>>>> But that does not mean X and Y are interchangeable!
>>>>
>>> But we can toggle between a nesting and a multi-dimensional view of
>>> an array. It's either an array of arrays of arrays ... (how many "arrays" 
>>> are allowed before you resort to counting them?) or it's a cube 
>>> with each sub-cube representing a data item (how many dimensions
>>> can you visualise before this becomes difficult?).
>>>>
>>>> As Ben says, there is probably not much point in continuing.  Watching
>>>> your frantic back-peddling and attempts to re-write the twaddle you
>>>> posted is entertaining for a bit, but not very constructive.
>>>>
>>> Pure arrogance. Ben's an academic thus notorious for being catty,
>>> but you don't even have that excuse.
>>>
>>
>> Don't you even /realise/ how often you have changed your point of view?
>>  You make absurd concrete, precise statements that you claim are obvious
>> and irrefutable rules, then gradually reduce them to being vague ideas
>> that might be related to other ideas, or might not.
>>
>>> In mathematics, if we know A is in B, that tells us nothing about B other 
>>> than the A subset. In science, "as in E. coli, so in elephant".
>>>
>>
>> It is exactly the same - if you say animal A is a type of B, that tells
>> us nothing more about them.  Equally, in mathematics, saying the set of
>> integers is a subset of the set of rationals conveys more information.
>>
>> Oh, and E. coli are not types of elephants, nor are elephants a type of
>> E. coli.  And for the sake of anyone with food poisoning, I am glad they
>> are not interchangeable.
>>
> "As in E. coli, so in elephant" is a famous aphorism in biochemistry.
> They're both organisms. What we see in one tells us quite a bit about the 
> other, and therefore about all organisms, or maybe all organisms except
> a narrow subset. But it's not a mathematical rule, it doesn't even always
> hold.

It is not science either - because in science, to be a rule it should
always hold as far as we know.  It's just a saying that can be a useful
guideline - like in mathematics you might say "this looks like a pattern".

You are making a distinction between mathematics and other sciences that
does not exist - pretending that this lets you off the hook for writing
something that is at best a vague idea of yours, formulated as though it
were a clearly defined absolute rule.

> 
> We can't prove mathematically that humans can't parse more than 3 levels 
> of nested parentheses. Yes, it is in a sense a statement about mathematics,
> but it's also a statement about psychology. We can show, indeed you showed
> yourself, that three seems to be the limit. We can then speculate why that might
> be.

You have been shown countless examples of when humans /can/ parse more
than 3 levels of nested parentheses.  You have been shown countless
examples (including my own) of when /2/ levels is enough to give a high
chance of error.  Everyone is happy with the idea that increased nesting
usually means complex expressions, and that complex expressions are
harder to parse correctly than simple ones.  /Why/ are you so obsessed
with the idea that 3 is a magic number in all this?

It is pointless to speculate why "three seems to be the limit" when it
has been so clearly demonstrated that there is no particular limit at all.

> 
> Since nested arrays and cubes are two ways of visualising the same thing, 

No, they are not.  Depending on what you are dealing with, a set of
three nested arrays /might/ be visualised as a cube - but it might not
make any sense at all.

> it
> seems reasonable that they are related.

No, that does not follow - even if your premise about what we can parse
and the dimensions of a cube was correct.  At best, it might seem
reasonable to consider if they are related.

> But we can't prove that in a mathematical
> way. 

On the other hand, we have had no problem /disproving/ it in a
scientific way.

> It's a poverty of thinking to insist you must.

If you are going to make a claim as an absolute rule, as you have been
doing, then it is perfectly reasonable to insist that you give a
reasonable level of proof.  I agree that it could not be proven
mathematically - but if it were true then you should certainly be able
to show statistical evidence for it along with a reasonable scientific
argument for why it might be so.

As it stands, your claim has all the authority of a claim that the earth
is flat.

> The naive idea is that statements 
> must either be provably, irrefutably correct, or they are to be dismissed. 

Maybe that is the way /you/ like to think, but it is not how I or others
here think.  What we do think, however, is that an extraordinary claim
that runs contrary to the evidence presented, needs some backing up.

> That applies 
> to computer programs, it's either correct or it is bugged, it doesn't apply to other areas of
> life, including even laying out programs so that they are humanly understandable.
> 

There is only one area of life in which people regularly make wild and
dramatic claims that run contrary to the evidence around them and the
opinions of others.  We have seen that sort of thing too much in c.l.c.
for most people's tastes.

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Re: And they say C is obscure "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2017-05-28 16:03 -0400
  Re: And they say C is obscure Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2017-05-30 02:21 -0700
    Re: And they say C is obscure "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2017-06-04 20:55 -0400
      Re: And they say C is obscure Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2017-06-05 01:44 -0700
        Re: And they say C is obscure raltbos@xs4all.nl (Richard Bos) - 2017-06-05 09:47 +0000
          Re: And they say C is obscure Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2017-06-05 03:51 -0700
            Re: And they say C is obscure Gareth Owen <gwowen@gmail.com> - 2017-06-05 15:43 +0100
              Re: And they say C is obscure Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2017-06-05 13:51 -0700
              Re: And they say C is obscure raltbos@xs4all.nl (Richard Bos) - 2017-06-06 17:26 +0000
      Re: And they say C is obscure Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2017-06-05 11:59 +0100
        Re: And they say C is obscure Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2017-06-05 04:12 -0700
          Re: And they say C is obscure asetofsymbols@gmail.com - 2017-06-05 05:54 -0700
          Re: And they say C is obscure Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2017-06-05 15:03 +0100
            Re: And they say C is obscure Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2017-06-05 07:22 -0700
              Re: And they say C is obscure GOTHIER Nathan <nathan.gothier@gmail.com> - 2017-06-05 16:22 +0200
                Re: And they say C is obscure Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2017-06-05 07:40 -0700
                Re: And they say C is obscure GOTHIER Nathan <nathan.gothier@gmail.com> - 2017-06-05 16:41 +0200
              Re: And they say C is obscure Gareth Owen <gwowen@gmail.com> - 2017-06-05 15:44 +0100
              Re: And they say C is obscure Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2017-06-05 16:12 +0100
                Re: And they say C is obscure Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2017-06-05 09:08 -0700
                Re: And they say C is obscure David Kleinecke <dkleinecke@gmail.com> - 2017-06-05 12:08 -0700
                Re: And they say C is obscure asetofsymbols@gmail.com - 2017-06-05 13:10 -0700
                Re: And they say C is obscure Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2017-06-05 23:54 +0100
                Re: And they say C is obscure Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2017-06-06 01:15 -0700
                Re: And they say C is obscure David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2017-06-06 11:10 +0200
                Re: And they say C is obscure Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2017-06-06 02:39 -0700
                Re: And they say C is obscure David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2017-06-06 12:15 +0200
                Re: And they say C is obscure Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2017-06-06 03:47 -0700
                Re: And they say C is obscure David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2017-06-06 13:09 +0200
                Re: And they say C is obscure Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2017-06-06 05:26 -0700
                Re: And they say C is obscure GOTHIER Nathan <nathan.gothier@gmail.com> - 2017-06-06 14:25 +0200
                Re: And they say C is obscure Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2017-06-06 05:34 -0700
                Re: And they say C is obscure GOTHIER Nathan <nathan.gothier@gmail.com> - 2017-06-06 15:41 +0200
                Re: And they say C is obscure David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2017-06-06 15:04 +0200
                Re: And they say C is obscure raltbos@xs4all.nl (Richard Bos) - 2017-06-06 17:37 +0000
                Re: And they say C is obscure David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2017-06-07 10:17 +0200
                Re: And they say C is obscure Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2017-06-06 08:49 -0700
                Re: And they say C is obscure Gareth Owen <gwowen@gmail.com> - 2017-06-06 19:17 +0100
                Re: And they say C is obscure Gareth Owen <gwowen@gmail.com> - 2017-06-06 19:16 +0100
                Re: And they say C is obscure Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2017-06-06 12:44 +0100
                Re: And they say C is obscure raltbos@xs4all.nl (Richard Bos) - 2017-06-06 17:34 +0000
                Re: And they say C is obscure David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2017-06-06 21:14 +0200
                Re: And they say C is obscure Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2017-06-06 13:10 -0700
                Re: And they say C is obscure Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2017-06-06 14:34 -0700
                Re: And they say C is obscure Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2017-06-06 15:27 -0700
                Re: And they say C is obscure Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2017-06-11 16:06 -0700
                Re: And they say C is obscure Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2017-06-06 12:10 +0100
                Re: And they say C is obscure Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2017-06-06 04:36 -0700
                Re: And they say C is obscure raltbos@xs4all.nl (Richard Bos) - 2017-06-06 17:32 +0000
              Re: And they say C is obscure David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2017-06-05 17:58 +0200

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